Role for Women?

#22
I think it's hard for people outside of the music business to understand that killing players are in demand. The thread is really about sexism as a whole in corporate America. Like pop music! In the world of Pop music you will observe record companies practice racism and everything else to put together a super band appealing to white or black America. I. E. The Back Street Boys are the white version of the band New Edition, carefully crafted for white America.... We teach the skills of Music. There is no shortage of Women tearing it up in the music business. The Women who began this thread I believe us mixing apples and oranges, without an understanding of the music business. There is no institution on planet Earth that goes more out of the way to recruit Women. The school takes the pool of students that audition. If the amount of Women are low, that falls in the category of a larger sociological history that has little to do with Berklee. Burning killer players work! Those who claim discrimination in this business tend to have other professional problem that make them undesirable to hire.
 
#23
I still remember a bass styles (or reading...can't remember) lab with Funkhouser that I had had. There was one little Japanese girl in the class. After about the 2nd class we all realized that she was kicking our butts....and she also happened to be the sweetest person around. She was the coolest....super happening time, reading and sound. There were plenty of women at Berklee who were always making waves. It'll be great to see more and more women as band leaders and in backing bands...it's happening already!
 
#25
I would suggest that for most of the last 40 years, I've been working for female artists. And I've been hiring female musicians when they had the skills to accomplish the task at hand. I even married a woman - I'm a big fan... :)

But I would tend to agree with, "Those who claim discrimination in this business tend to have other professional problem that make them undesirable to hire."
 
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#26
I am looking at a commemorative photograph of the last group of middle-school bass students I taught. There are seventeen students in the photo, of whom, nine are females. :)

FWIW, most of my female students were better musicians and students than the males; more focused, patient, aware of the subtleties of musicianship, and conscientious about doing their homework. I attribute most of this difference to the effects of puberty, and the different rates at which boys and girls mature, but the difference were remarkable, nonetheless.
 
#28
There is an interesting section in the Malcolm Gladwell book Blink about when orchestras started doing "blind" auditions -- where they selected musicians by listen to them play without seeing who is playing.

By listening to the musicians playing, and not seeing how they look, it avoided any misconceptions or prejudices the conductor and selection committees may have had.

The end result was an increased number of women being hired by the major orchestras that had traditionally been mostly men.
 
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#29
I started playing rock music as far back at the 60's, and then added other genres and instruments,. I have always felt welcome in bands playing with the guys.

I also tend to agree that other issues, not gender, may stand in the way of success.
 

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